Congress, NASA

CBO report offers up human spaceflight to reduce the budget deficit

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report yesterday on strategies for reducing the federal budget deficit, identifying ways to reduce spending and increase revenue. Among the proposals for cutting spending was the eliminate NASA’s human spaceflight program: “This option would terminate NASA’s human space exploration and space operations programs, except for those necessary to meet space communications needs (such as communication with the Hubble Space Telescope),” the report states (p. 74). Science and aeronautics programs would not be cut by the proposal.

The CBO report’s primary reason for eliminating NASA’s human spaceflight programs is that “increased capabilities in electronics and information technology have generally reduced the need for humans to fly space missions” and that, by terminating human spaceflight, it avoids the risk to human life inherent with such missions. However, it added that ending current human spaceflight programs “would end the technical progress necessary to prepare for human missions to Mars” (but then, if you’re ending human spaceflight, you’re probably not thinking about sending humans to Mars.) It added that there are limitations to the capabilities of robotic missions and “there may be some scientific advantage to having humans at the International Space Station to conduct experiments in microgravity.” The CBO report does not mention any geopolitical significance, positive or negative, to terminating NASA’s human spaceflight efforts.

The savings the CBO estimates would result from ending NASA’s human spaceflight program are significant: $73 billion from 2015 through 2023. The CBO report doesn’t go into details on how it calculated those estimates, but the near-term numbers are similar to the budget projections for the Space Operations and Exploration accounts in the NASA budget. That $73 billion is the third-largest spending cut among discretionary programs, behind a 25% cut in international affairs programs ($114 billion in 2015–2023) and reducing defense spending to conform to the caps in the Budget Control Act ($495 billion in the same period.)

The CBO emphasized that it was not endorsing any of the proposals included in the report, but instead providing a set of options for policymakers. “As a collection, the options are intended to reflect a range of possibilities, not a ranking of priorities or an exhaustive list,” the office stated. “Inclusion or exclusion of any particular option does not imply endorsement or disapproval by CBO, and the report makes no recommendations.”

124 comments to CBO report offers up human spaceflight to reduce the budget deficit

  • Dark Blue Nine

    It’s hard to get excited about these kinds of deficit reduction lists. They’re everywhere, but few, if any, government activities from these lists get terminated:

    http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/?p=deficit-reduction

    http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/10/how-to-cut-343-billion-from-the-federal-budget

    http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/plan-to-cut-federal-spending

    It’s also hard to get excited about a list with such a high level of granularity. The cuts that NASA is facing under sequestration don’t require the termination of the entire human space flight program. CBO’s list would have been more useful if it demonstrated judgment in separating good programs from bad and terminating the latter in human space flight.

  • Brett

    I’d only agree to kill off the manned spaceflight program if we got a few billion extra tossed towards the robotic programs, and kept funding for commercial crew experiments alive. That probably wouldn’t happen – more likely is that the end of manned spaceflight would start a death spiral for NASA as an agency, causing it to sink down the point where even doing missions above a billion dollars a year would be politically challenging. Just look at how hard it is for pure science stuff to get funding outside of NASA, like with deep ocean exploration or the superconducting super-collider.

    Then again, it’s not like the manned program is going anywhere. Does anyone seriously think that SLS is going to get us to an asteroid anytime in the next ten years? How about NASA getting us to Mars this side of 2040? I don’t. My guess is that SLS staggers along until it either gets caught in the cycle of budget-cuts-leading-to-delays-leading-to-budget-bloat-leading-to-cancellation after we get a new President in 2017, or it eventually leads to more Low Earth Orbit missions like the Shuttle.

    • There’s no logical reason to send humans to an asteroid.

      Marcel

      • Gregori

        There is no logical reason to send them anywhere for that matter. There are only “rationales” which usually consist of wishing to go to some favored destination and coming up with the reasons for that decision later.

        • Brett

          That’s not entirely true. If we had the willingness to commit more resources, sending human beings to locations like Mars would be a good idea in terms of research. We’d learn a lot more with humans on Mars for a couple of months to a year than we’ll learn with a dozen robotic landers.

          But since that type of funding isn’t about to materialize, we’re better off just letting the manned program go away until we can actually figure out something we will pay for, and do the robotic probe missions.

          • Coastal Ron

            Brett said:

            If we had the willingness to commit more resources, sending human beings to locations like Mars would be a good idea in terms of research. We’d learn a lot more with humans on Mars for a couple of months to a year than we’ll learn with a dozen robotic landers.

            On a $/science gained scale, I think robotic explorers are much less expensive than sending humans. It may seem like humans would be better, because they could gather information quicker, but with the same equivalent money robotic explorers could cover far more ground and do more than humans could on Mars.

            Think about it, right now it’s likely to take $300B+ to get humans to Mars and back safely, and that is probably conservative. Imagine what a robotic exploration program could do with that same amount of money, especially now that we’ve demonstrated we can land one-ton masses on the surface.

            However, since getting to Mars in currently not a priority, we’ll have to be content with a light & humanless presence on Mars.

            • Brett

              Agreed. For the money we’d have to spend on a manned program (even the most generous estimates are around $80-90 billion), you could do a ton of robotic missions. Curiosity was only about $2.5 billion, so that would be the equivalent of 32 Curiosity missions.

            • Dan

              If we’re going to mars just to do science, we might as well not go at all. The real reason for going to mars should be to settle there. Dr. Zubrin makes a good case for why this is not beyond our technology and why this objective should be the priority of our manned space program.

          • Hiram

            “We’d learn a lot more with humans on Mars for a couple of months to a year than we’ll learn with a dozen robotic landers.”

            Actually, we’d learn a lot more with humans in orbit around Mars, controlling robotic surrogates in many places on the surface, than we would with a couple of humans on Mars stuck in one place on the surface. A LOT more. Putting humans in orbit around Mars will be much simpler than putting them on the surface.

            But humans won’t get sent to Mars to do science. Mars science isn’t important enough to pay the cost of that.

            I do agree that it may be in the cards for the human program to just evaporate, unless we can figure out something that humans are needed for in space, that is worth the expenditure.

        • There are logical scientific, strategic and commercial reasons to establish outpost on the surface of the Moon and Mars.

          But you don’t need to send humans to an asteroid when a machine could do a much better job at a fraction of the price of a manned mission.

          Marcel

          • Brett

            I agree. We could get the same type of work or better sending a dozen probes for cheaper than it would cost to send a single human mission out to a Near Earth Asteroid.

          • Coastal Ron

            Marcel F. Williams said:

            But you don’t need to send humans to an asteroid when a machine could do a much better job at a fraction of the price of a manned mission.

            I’d say even most NewSpace supporters would agree that the proposed asteroid mission is not worth the time and money, and I’ve stated previously that it’s very likely that it was proposed to give the SLS & MPCV something – anything – to do.

            • The Congress proposed building the SLS in order to corner the President into returning to the Moon. In fact, the bill instructed the administration to report to Congress as to how the SLS would be utilized in the near term for cis-lunar missions.

              Being hostile to any lunar return, President Obama pretty much ignored those instructions until the administration suddenly adopted the idea of not going to an asteroid at all but instead bringing a meteoroid back into cis-lunar space for exploration by the MPCV.

              Nothing wrong, IMO, with– unmanned robotic missions– for capturing meteoroids and bringing them back into cis-lunar space for exploitation (oxygen, water, carbon, mass shielding). But that’s really not a manned space program.

              Marcel

              • Brett

                I have no idea why they’ve fixated on the asteroid mission. Maybe it seems “fresh” and “possible”, going along with Planetary Resources’ effort. More likely it’s just that no one can seriously pretend that a Mars or Moon mission is going to get funding in the near future, so you need somewhere to go if you want a justification for SLS aside from “jobs and technology”.

  • Coastal Ron

    If, for some reason, this report was actually looked at and considered by our political leaders, perhaps it would finally spur them to update our goals for sending humans to space using taxpayer money?

    Sure there is The National Aeronautics and Space Act, which was recently updated in 2010. But it’s pretty obvious that our politicians don’t reference or care about that, even though they wrote it and approved it. The SLS is proof of that, since it violates many parts of the act.

    We do need to have a national conversation about what our goals are, and my hope would be that a deliberative body is brought together to help define the options that our politicians can pick from.

    Will that happen? Not likely in today’s political climate, but it SHOULD happen. Oh well…

    • Hiram

      “We do need to have a national conversation about what our goals are, and my hope would be that a deliberative body is brought together to help define the options that our politicians can pick from.”

      Well, that is *precisely* what the NRC Committee on Human Spaceflight is for. Will that happen? At least that is happening, and it’s happening in todays political climate. The question about what human spaceflight is really for has now been asked in a formal, high level way. That’s never really happened before. It may be too much to hope for, but one would like to believe that part of the result of that committee report would be to kick off such a national conversation.

      In fact, the CBO report option is noteworthy in this regard. It’s not about NASA, and it’s not about space. It’s about human spaceflight. Of course, it’s been said that NASA goes as human spaceflight goes. Remains to be seen.

      The fact that this option came out in the CBO report means that someone on the staff for that report thought it should be there. One wonders who it is. There are some forty CBO staff that are named contributors to that report, and I don’t recognize any of them as being a “player” in space policy. A number of national security specialists, and one or two R&D people. But most of those staffers have no evident expertise in space policy, science, or technology. They do education, immigration, workers comp, highways, veterans, mortgages, health policy, employment, business, exports, etc. Does anyone have a clue about who it might be there who has a bullseye on human spaceflight?

  • amightywind

    The leftists have always sold the CBO as a dispassionate umpire calling balls and strikes. Their scoring of Obamacare should have put that notion to rest. Now that the welfare state is in mortal fiscal danger they show their real colors. Keep NASA. Dismantle the welfare state.

  • The Federal debt now stands at more than $17 trillion. It will probably be much larger by 2025 if we don’t seriously reform our inherently inflationary and unnecessarily expensive welfare state.

    Cutting $73 billion from a $17 trillion debt by eliminating our manned space program would reduce our debt by 0.4% (not even 1%). Of course since spending on advances in science and technology actually increases our wealth, such cuts would probably explode the debt even more because of a reduction in revenues due to the lack of those technological advancements in our economy.

    Marcel F. Williams

    • Gregori

      What massive wealth increasing technologies are coming out of NASA these days?

      • Coastal Ron

        Gregori said:

        What massive wealth increasing technologies are coming out of NASA these days?

        You’ll have to excuse Marcel – he still thinks NASA drove the creation of the microchip industry, and created velcro.

        Other than Commercial Crew, which could if successful result in an industry that could stand on it’s own, I’m not aware of any programs within NASA that are doing anything that will influence the marketplace in any way.

      • common sense

        Marcel is wrong but there are several technologies at NASA such as nanotechnologies, nano sensors, quantum computing and more that have a serious potential for altering our lives. Whether they are correctly advertised is a different story.

        • Marcel is right! NASA has been a huge benefit to private industry and to the growth of the American economy. In fact, its NASA that’s trying to help private commercial companies to develop their own manned spaceflight capability. And even Elon has thanked them repeatedly for their help.

          Yet many folks on this forum would actually like to kill our government space program, the goose that’s actually laying the golden eggs for private industry!

          Marcel

          • Coastal Ron

            Marcel F. Williams said:

            Marcel is right! NASA has been a huge benefit to private industry and to the growth of the American economy.

            Like I already pointed out, try naming something outside of Commercial Cargo & Crew that supports your argument.

            Where is the “huge benefit”? If it’s so huge, you should be able to provide a very long list of things that are VERY recent.

            Yet many folks on this forum would actually like to kill our government space program, the goose that’s actually laying the golden eggs for private industry!

            No, we only want the spending to end up doing something useful. Spending $30B for a rocket that no one needs is not beneficial, even if it does stimulate the economy.

            If the goal is to expand our human presence out into space – which is not an official stated goal, but an implicit one – then we could be spending money smarter. THAT’S what “many folks” want – smarter spending.

          • Hiram

            “NASA has been a huge benefit to private industry and to the growth of the American economy. In fact, its NASA that’s trying to help private commercial companies to develop their own manned spaceflight capability.”

            Development of commercial manned spaceflight capability has been a huge benefit to the growth of the American economy? What orifice are you talking out of?

            No one argues that NASA has benefited the nation. The issue is whether $17B could be otherwise spent to better benefit the nation. Spending $17B to dig ditches would benefit the nation, if the ditches were dug in the right places. I would guess that if $17B/year were plowed into the IT industry for one year of R&D, the benefits to the nation and private industry in particular would dwarf those produced by NASA.

            As to nanotechnologies, nano sensors, and quantum computing, NASA has been a player in these technologies, but for it’s own purposes. In fact there was an ITT Spectrum article just last year that pointed out that NASA was no longer even a leader in nanotech, having dramatically reduced investment in it. It was noted that NASA’s interests in nanotechnology are somewhat removed from the areas of energy, medicine and materials that have been the focus of the government’s nanotechnology funding strategies.

            The question is what technologies NASA has *enabled*. Not these.

            • common sense

              I am not going to go over all the technologies but here is an example

              http://gizmodo.com/5881097/this-is-nasas-cancer+sniffing-cellphone-sensor/

              If this is done elsewhere I would like to know.

              • Hiram

                “If this is done elsewhere I would like to know.”

                http://news.yale.edu/2009/12/14/scientists-use-nanosensors-first-time-measure-cancer-biomarkers-blood

                http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=2555

                http://mips.stanford.edu/grants/ccne-t/

                etc. etc.

                But putting them in cellphones is a cute idea. Doesn’t need a NASA to do that, though.

              • common sense

                Look we can argue and nitpick for ever. NASA is developing a NASA patented technology that does have to potential to alter our lives. Should it be NASA? Should it be NSF? Or whoever? It is not the point. The point is NASA is developing and helping to develop such technologies. And that is a fact. Is there a relation to HSF? Yes to some point. Can we do away with HSF? Yes we can. But simply saying that NASA does not work on technologies helpful to the nation is just wrong.

              • Hiram

                “The point is NASA is developing and helping to develop such technologies. And that is a fact.”

                That may be a fact, but that’s NOT the point. The point is that NASA might not be a cost-effective route for developing these technologies. Cancer detection is important, but it’s not NASA’s fundamental job, which is to do stuff in space that no one else can do. The point is that money invested in NASA might develop these technologies better if not done by NASA. That’s hardly “nitpicking”.

                I never said that NASA doesn’t work on technologies helpful to the nation. That’s patently false. We can argue, but don’t make stuff up out of whole cloth. Although maybe the presumption is that to the extent that human spaceflight isn’t helpful to the nation, NASA better be doing something that is.

                NASA also has great programmers. We should have had NASA do all the coding for Obamacare, right? We could have even tested out the system from ISS. Hey, if we got human space flight engineers to do that system, it probably would have worked when the countdown got to zero. It would have cost a bazillion dollars, but it sure would have been helpful to the nation.

              • common sense

                By the way unlike what I posted none of your links state a collaboration with industry and possible commercialization wherein lies the changes to our society, not in even the most advanced research.

                “That may be a fact, but that’s NOT the point. The point is that NASA might not be a cost-effective route for developing these technologies. Cancer detection is important, but it’s not NASA’s fundamental job, which is to do stuff in space that no one else can do. The point is that money invested in NASA might develop these technologies better if not done by NASA. That’s hardly “nitpicking”.”

                This is total nonsense. The *point* of this thread is the cancellation of HSF. The technology I quoted was specifically developed for HSF in a different context. HSF is not all about rockets and capsules you know.

                “I never said that NASA doesn’t work on technologies helpful to the nation. That’s patently false. We can argue, but don’t make stuff up out of whole cloth. Although maybe the presumption is that to the extent that human spaceflight isn’t helpful to the nation, NASA better be doing something that is.”

                I was answering Coastal Ron’s ” I’m not aware of any programs within NASA that are doing anything that will influence the marketplace in any way.” Nothing to do with you. See above about the technology.

                “NASA also has great programmers. We should have had NASA do all the coding for Obamacare, right? We could have even tested out the system from ISS. Hey, if we got human space flight engineers to do that system, it probably would have worked when the countdown got to zero. It would have cost a bazillion dollars, but it sure would have been helpful to the nation.”

                I think I am done debating with you. You are nearing the DCSCA/Windy level now.

              • Hiram

                “By the way unlike what I posted none of your links state a collaboration with industry and possible commercialization”

                Um, yeah. These guys are doing it just for fun and intellectual enrichment. Ha. It would take a few minutes for these guys to find a gimme cap with a corporate logo on it. Maybe a logo that they devised.

                “The *point* of this thread is the cancellation of HSF.”

                The point, which you brought up, was “several technologies at NASA such as nanotechnologies, nano sensors, quantum computing and more that have a serious potential for altering our lives.” My counterpoint was that NASA human spaceflight is not necessarily a leader in enabling these technologies. NASA’s “help” must be appreciated but, as such, those efforts should not figure strongly in a decision about the cancellation of HSF.

                “I was answering Coastal Ron’s ‘I’m not aware of any programs within NASA that are doing anything that will influence the marketplace in any way.’ Nothing to do with you.”

                It looked to me like you were replying to my post. But replies do slip around. I do that as well.

                “You are nearing the DCSCA/Windy level now.”

                Gee, do I get a badge? Maybe I should rip off my elbow pads and start partisan rants.

    • Vladislaw

      You are confusing the yearly budget deficit with the national debt. Cutting anything from the current yearly budget does nothing for the national debt. The only way to lower the national debt is to increase revenues to the point that we are generating a higher revenue per year than we are spending. Even then it does not mean the national debt would decrease. Congress would have to actually use the surpluses to pay on the national debt.

      President Bush said that by creating and generating a surplus you are taking more money, from the taxpayer, then the government needs so he cut taxes eliminating the government from generating a surplus and moved us into trillion dollar a year deficits.

      • Michael Kent

        “President Bush said that by creating and generating a surplus you are taking more money, from the taxpayer, then the government needs so he cut taxes eliminating the government from generating a surplus and moved us into trillion dollar a year deficits.”

        If you’re going to descend into blind partisan politics, could you at least get the facts correct?

        The Bush tax cuts occurred in 2001 & 2003. The deficit in 2007 — four years later — was $165 billion. The deficit in 2011 — four years after that — was $1.6 trillion. The trillion-dollar deficits were not caused by the Bush tax cuts.

        “The only way to lower the national debt is to increase revenues to the point that we are generating a higher revenue per year than we are spending.

        That’s one way but not the only way (or even the best way). A better way is to reduce spending to below revenue.

        So, to address many of the arguments on this thread:

        Complaining about the relative size of the NASA budget compared to the budget deficit is not by itself a valid reason to exempt it from cuts. It’s a tragedy of the commons argument. “My two sheep are not overgrazing the pasture. It’s everyone else’s sheep that are causing the problem.” While it may be true in this case, it’s also true for most of the other shepherds in the pasture.

        NASA does not have enough political clout to make a cut-everyone-but-me approach successful.

  • common sense

    Here is for some controversial, or not, thoughts. NASA HSF is often referred to as the SLS/MPCV programs now. Very few consider ISS to be part of it, right or wrong, nor Commercial Crew/Services. Then as any good accountant should they watch the performance of HSF and it is dismal. CEV started way back in 2004, notwithstanding the precursor OSP. Now 11 years later this program eventually spawned a ridiculously expensive one-time suborbital Ares-1X and a highly defective Orion, after billions were spent. As I have told many times this will unfortunately end, eventually. The only, only bright light is commercial space servicing the ISS. I doubt they will terminate the ISS unless all participants are on board, which may very well happen – it’s not like the economy in Europe or Japan is all that bright, but I doubt it. Furthermore, Congress has shown total disregard of the people working for the government with the sequestration nonsense which they keep pushing back on the President.

    Here is the scenario: SLS/MPCV are canned and they will put it on sequestration and on the President. Congress can and will do away with it. The money will just disappear, it will not be sent to other programs unlike what some “delusionals” might say.

    So now and then, what do you think will happen? Eventually.

    When might you ask? How about some time this January/February?

    Congress: Always supporting the people, thank you Congress!

  • guest

    Personally I would not be surprised to see the elimination of HSF. HSF leadership has never been weaker. The non-leaders at the helm of NASA and HSF are politically clueless; they are really technically clueless too.

    Brett questions whether anyone believes an asteroid mission in ten years is conceivable. The asteroid mission is probably more like 15 to 20 years out assuming that they fly an Orion with a crew within ten years-the first manned flight is now scheduled in 2021 and the first deep space mission is not likely until 2024 or later.

    I have yet to see an explanation of how the program moves on from a deep space earth orbital, lunar style or asteroid mission-does anyone really think that the heart of the Mars landing or even fly-by capability is an Orion? We would really put 2 people in a capsule for a year or 18 month mission? We are really going to do one-off Mars missions a’la Apollo at a price of $5billion or more each? Come on, get real.

    The CBO suggestion is especially risky for the next 3 years while we have a President who has been openly hostile to HSF. There is also no strong proHSF congressional leadership or support.

    Probably biggest factor of all have been the recent failures of HSF:
    (1) failure to put in place the mechanisms for efficient use of ISS, and
    (2) failure to efficiently develop the next generation system a without huge new cash infusions,
    (3) failure to effectively communicate the value of HSF to the public, Congress or the President. Except for Gravity, the ISS is all but invisible.

    Unless these things are dramatically turned around, quickly.. . Good luck to us all. We will need it.

    • common sense

      “The CBO suggestion is especially risky for the next 3 years while we have a President who has been openly hostile to HSF.”

      Do you have any way to support your allegation?

      No I did not think so.

      • In President Barack Obama’s own words on April 15,2010: “Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before.”

        Marcel

        • Gregori

          Going to the Moon is not all of human spaceflight, it just happens to be your ill thought out favored destination. The president pushed to increase NASA’s budget, extend ISS, fund commercial crew and develop the technologies needed to put humans in deep space. Congress has been openly hostile to human spaceflight.

          • The Commercial Crew program is not a deep space program. Its a LEO program.

            The SLS/MPCV is a deep space program that was started by Congress– not Obama. Obama has tried almost everything possible to delay or to stop the development of a heavy lift vehicle. And both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly criticized the administration for trying to undermine NASA’s heavy lift program!

            And the ISS doesn’t help you for deep space missions since it:

            1.It doesn’t test the radiation shielding necessary for deep space missions since its located at LEO, beneath the Earth’s magnetosphere. We need habitats located at the Lagrange points– not LEO!

            2. It doesn’t test astronaut’s ability to adjust to artificial gravity which is necessary for multiyear missions to Mars and back. A microgravity environment is inherently deleterious to human health.

            3. ISS funding hurts deep space exploration since it consumes $3 billion in annual funds that could be used to develop deep space habitats and lunar and Martian landing vehicles.

            Marcel F. Williams

            • Gregori

              The SLS/MPCV is not a deep space program by congress, its a corporate welfare and jobs program. Notice how they have no funded any payloads for it to actually go anywhere?

              Doing away with the ISS wouldn’t pay for Martian landing vehicles. You’re nut if you think that. It would kill off research into new technologies that lower the cost of access and operations in space. Research at the ISS is looking at ways to avoid using artificial gravity since its an unproven, risky and potentially expensive technology. They’re betting on AG not being necessary hence the research on the ISS. We don’t know if its actually necessary, thats why you do research and don’t just march ahead and throw money at things.

              Why do we need habitats at Lagrange points? Because they are there? Good God!!! You shouldn’t be allowed near anything involving money, ever.

              Congress are not engineers. We don’t need heavy lift. They need it since it directs funds into the right contractors. This is what happens when you allow politics to make a decision instead of economics or engineering know how.

              • Actually the ISS is the corporate welfare program since its totally unnecessary. Plus the rate of traffic to the ISS from the US side can only sustain about one manned spaceflight company. That’s not exactly free market competition. That’s called a monopoly.

                Private companies like Bigelow could easily provide LEO habitats for private companies and for governments much cheaper than the ISS. The costly big government ISS program needs to come to end by 2020 so that NASA can move forward.

                And you’re a nut if you don’t understand the need to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation and solar events during multiyear missions to other planets!

                Marcel F. Williams

              • Coastal Ron

                Marcel F. Williams said:

                Actually the ISS is the corporate welfare program since its totally unnecessary.

                Tell that to the humans living there.

                Plus the rate of traffic to the ISS from the US side can only sustain about one manned spaceflight company.

                Maybe, but since the only new hardware is the spacecraft, and each spacecraft is built to be reused up to ten times, whoever is providing the service can survive on a low flight rate. It certainly doesn’t affect the safety of the rocket, since the Atlas V and Falcon 9 fly many times a year anyways.

                That’s not exactly free market competition. That’s called a monopoly.

                Hence the reason the Administration wants multiple service providers. Are you just realizing this now?

                Personally I think SpaceX is a great company, but I also don’t want them to be the only provider of anything, since a benign monopoly is still a monopoly. I’m quite happy with paying a little extra to have system redundancy and let competition keep prices in check.

              • Coastal Ron

                Marcel F. Williams said:

                And you’re a nut if you don’t understand the need to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation and solar events during multiyear missions to other planets!

                You’re just as nutty to think the MPCV is what we’ll use to fly to Mars.

                When we do go to Mars, it will be in vehicles that are far large than what the SLS can lift, so we might as well get used to the idea that the modular ISS is the precursor to how we’ll explore space, not the SLS/MCPV.

              • Hiram

                “Why do we need habitats at Lagrange points? Because they are there?”

                Because Lagrange points offer capabilities for cis-lunar development that other orbits don’t. There have been studies that have clearly shown their value in servicing equipment in cis-lunar space, depoting for lunar resources and materiel, lunar telecommunications, science operations, and as gateways to further destinations. Stop to learn.

                Good God!!! You shouldn’t be allowed near anything involving policy, ever.

              • Justin Kugler

                Actually, NASA HRP is seriously questioning whether we can sustain human health & performance for long duration missions without AG now.

                NASA needs the research on the ISS to retire as many risks as possible, but even that data is suggesting that exercise, diet, and pharmaceutical countermeasures aren’t enough.

                Kent Joosten’s vehicle study from 10 years ago also suggests that the risk and expense of AG are not as severe as initially thought. Kirk Sorenson also showed how you can decouple the habitat spin from the thrust vector without mechanically complex counter-spin linkages.

              • “Hence the reason the Administration wants multiple service providers. Are you just realizing this now?”

                The problem is that you can sustain multiple service providers for a manned program that only requires about two to four manned flights per year. Commercial Crew companies cannot sustain themselves through the government space program.

                They need to be focusing on private space tourism for the super wealthy and through a space lotto system– not big government and tax payer dollars!

                Marcel F. Williams

              • Coastal Ron

                Marcel F. Williams said:

                Commercial Crew companies cannot sustain themselves through the government space program.

                Again. SpaceX and ULA are launch companies, and most of their revenue comes from launching payloads. A crew vehicle is just a payload, so it’s just one of many launches that they will do during the year. They don’t have to staff up any different to do a crew launch, and the launch crew has normal launch jobs throughout the year.

                Compare that with the SLS, where crews will sit around for YEARS without launching anything. We might as well fire them after every launch, and then rehire and retrain a few months before the next launch – it will be a lot cheaper.

                Commercial launch providers that also provide crew vehicles have the ability to survive at very low launch rates, and they have stated that in testimony in front of Congress.

                They need to be focusing on private space tourism for the super wealthy and through a space lotto system– not big government and tax payer dollars!

                As I recall you think the government should be paying $Billions for that lotto system.

                If SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada thought there was a market in space tourism, I’m sure they’d be pursuing it. Instead they see a market in doing actual services – supporting a government facility in a harsh environment location, which is not unlike what we go through to support our bases in Antarctica. As long as Congress supports the mission of the ISS, someone has to support the logistics of it – I’d rather not depend on Putin, would you?

            • Coastal Ron

              Marcel F. Williams said:

              The Commercial Crew program is not a deep space program. Its a LEO program.

              No, it’s a transportation service to LEO – it’s NOT a program.

              And since every BEO trip has to pass through LEO, and could stage out of LEO, Commercial Crew is the solution to the problem of “how do we get humans to space?”

              Every trip beyond LEO so far has started on Earth, but that is not the best way to stage a BEO mission. It is better to assemble your BEO vehicle in space (LEO, LLO, EML, etc.) and then ship up the crew after construction is complete.

              You are stuck in the 60’s – you need to think like a 21st Century explorer.

              It [the ISS] doesn’t test the radiation shielding necessary for deep space missions…

              You’re right, but neither does the SLS and MPCV. Congress is making NASA spend money on the wrong things IF the goal is to do HSF beyond LEO. But the ISS is the right TYPE of platform to use for testing radiation mitigation, especially if we put one like it further out into space (EML, LLO, etc.). A vehicle like the proposed Nautilus-X would be good too.

              And all you’re doing is reinforcing the comment I made above, which is that NASA’s technology cupboard is bare, and it needs to be built back up before NASA is ready to leave LEO. The SLS and MPCV do NOTHING to address radiation, gravity or any other issues that need to be solved before we leave LEO in confidence.

              • The Obama administration said we needed a heavy lift vehicle (although they were probably lying), both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, of course, forced the President to fund a heavy lift vehicle, Russia’s funding a heavy lift vehicle, China is funding a heavy lift vehicle, and even Elon Musk is doing research to develop a heavy lift vehicle. I’m afraid that the only folks that don’t want a heavy lift vehicle are some of the anti-government Libertarian extremist on some of these forums:-)

                The purpose of a heavy lift vehicle is to be able to place large and heavy objects into space. We could have launched a habitat with a larger volume than the ISS with just two launches if we had a heavy lift vehicle– and saved the tax payers a ton of money.

                The ISS type of habitats are just too small and heavy for interplanetary journeys. SLS derived habitats from the hydrogen fuel tanks would be much larger and lighter and could easily accommodate the mass shielding necessary for radiation protection during long interplanetary journeys.

                Marcel F. Williams

              • Coastal Ron

                Marcel F. Williams said:

                The Obama administration said we needed a heavy lift vehicle…

                They thought we did, but they certainly didn’t want to start building it today, because of obvious reasons – we CAN’T AFFORD TO USE ONE YET.

                Plus we have ZERO need for one.

                And yes, no doubt the HLV program would have been killed off once it because abundantly clear that existing launchers were all we need.

                The purpose of a heavy lift vehicle is to be able to place large and heavy objects into space.

                Yes, that’s why we have the Delta IV Heavy, and the upcoming Falcon Heavy. They put large and heavy objects in space. And so far, there are no funded objects that can’t be lifted by one or both of these launchers.

                Once a steady stream of funded payloads are identified that can’t be put on either of those two launchers, THEN we’ll talk about creating a competition to field a larger rocket. But it doesn’t need to be a government owned one.

                We could have launched a habitat with a larger volume than the ISS with just two launches

                No we couldn’t have. The ISS masses 450mt, and most of that is equipment. Even the full up SLS would have taken at least four launches, and likely more.

                And volume is not a constraint on the ISS. If you watch NASA TV, they are swimming around the 5m diameter modules. If anything, smaller modules are more adaptable AND replaceable. Plus we have at least five launcher around the world that can lift them.

                SLS derived habitats from the hydrogen fuel tanks…

                This is a quaint idea, but never tested in real life. To make a fuel tank useable, you have to make it weaker on takeoff, or do a heck of a lot of refurbishment in space, which we’ve never tried. This won’t work until we have hundreds of people in space, not just six.

              • pathfinder_01

                “This is a quaint idea, but never tested in real life. To make a fuel tank useable, you have to make it weaker on takeoff, or do a heck of a lot of refurbishment in space, which we’ve never tried. This won’t work until we have hundreds of people in space, not just six.”

                Esp. as modern liquid hydrogen tanks are built in such a way that the metal gains strength from the cold propellant(i.e. the empty tank is weaker than the full one).

              • MW“The Obama administration said we needed a heavy lift vehicle…”

                “They thought we did, but they certainly didn’t want to start building it today, because of obvious reasons – we CAN’T AFFORD TO USE ONE YET.”

                The SLS will not be ready operate routinely until probably 2021– when the disposable RS-25E engines and the large upper stage are ready.

                Hopefully, the $3 billion a year ISS program will be history. So the SLS should have plenty of money to conduct its cis-lunar programs.

                Marcel

              • Coastal Ron

                Marcel F. Williams said:

                Hopefully, the $3 billion a year ISS program will be history. So the SLS should have plenty of money to conduct its cis-lunar programs.

                Considering the Constellation program would have taken until mid-2030’s before it was ready to send humans to the Moon – and it required a massive increase in budget, it’s HILARIOUS to think that you think NASA with a much SMALLER budget will get to the Moon faster.

                You are truly delusional.

                NASA simply cannot afford to use the SLS at a flight rate where it will be safe to fly. Taking over the $3B/year ISS budget still won’t even come close to the amount needed.

                Don’t you ever learn things from history?

        • Coastal Ron

          Marcel F. Williams said:

          We’ve been there before.

          Which is an undeniable statement of fact. Well, unless you are one of those Moon conspiracy nuts… are you? ;-)

          And since most of the House Republican’s in Texas, Alabama and Florida (i.e. where most of the Constellation work was being done) voted to cancel the Constellation program, apparently that was one of the few bi-partisan things that Obama has accomplished.

          But you also forget that Obama asked to increase NASA’s budget, which was going to be used to develop HSF exploration technologies – to build back up NASA’s bare technology cupboard.

          Obama is not anti-HSF, and if his support of Commercial Crew shows anything, he is pro-HSF.

          • common sense

            Obama is pro NASA and even pro HSF but he is anti stupidity and sometimes HSF and stupidity unfortunately somehow rhyme.

            • Yeah. That’s why Obama tried to shut down NASA’s beyond LEO program while trying to hand over LEO to his buddy Elon as a corporate make work program for the ISS– a wasteful and unnecessary big government program that was originally supposed to end after 2015.

              The man is just in luv with billionaires:-)

              Marcel

              • Coastal Ron

                Marcel F. Williams said:

                That’s why Obama tried to shut down NASA’s beyond LEO program while trying to hand over LEO to his buddy Elon as a corporate make work program for the ISS…

                You keep forgetting that it was Bush/Griffin that gave Musk his biggest boost. With that SpaceX got the Falcon 9 and Dragon – Commercial Crew is just an upgrade of the Dragon.

                I’d say that pretty destroys your conspiracy theory…

          • “But you also forget that Obama asked to increase NASA’s budget, which was going to be used to develop HSF exploration technologies – to build back up NASA’s bare technology cupboard.Obama is not anti-HSF, and if his support of Commercial Crew shows anything, he is pro-HSF.”

            During a huge economic crisis, the Obama administration should have known that Congress would not increase the budget for a program– to nowhere. If somehow he didn’t realize that then he’s a lot dumber than I thought. But he probably really didn’t care one way or the other.

            Obama is only trying to get Commercial Crew companies into space because he thinks that manned spaceflight is a waste of tax payer dollars. But he has no problem if private industry wants to waste their money on such things. But the man has shown extremely little interest in manned spaceflight.

            Obama’s actions set NASA up for huge budget cuts. Fortunately both Democrats and Republicans rejected his ideas and forced the SLS program down his throat.

            The Commercial Crew program, however, is a good thing since private space programs enhance the efficiency and innovation of both private and government space programs. Both are mutually beneficial to each other.

            Marcel F. Williams

            • Coastal Ron

              Marcel F. Williams said:

              Obama is only trying to get Commercial Crew companies into space because he thinks that manned spaceflight is a waste of tax payer dollars.

              Yet the far more expensive SLS and MPCV programs are not wastes of money, even though they don’t have any funded missions that they support?

              My what a topsy-turvy world you live in… ;-)

            • Brett

              That pretty much sums it up. I don’t Obama is actively hostile to manned spaceflight, but he just doesn’t really care about it – it’s extremely low on his list of priorities, and not something to be valued in of itself. If it’s driving job creation and new technology to be used on Earth, then that’s good. If not, then it’s not too important.

              You see this in some of his old policy platforms from when he was a candidate back in 2007-2008. One of them was to delay Constellation for five years in order to fund a program to help kids learn how to read.

              • Hiram

                “One of them was to delay Constellation for five years in order to fund a program to help kids learn how to read.”

                I never heard Obama’s education-instead-of-human-spaceflight musings expressed this way. If it comes down to helping kids learn how to read, then natch, there’s no contest, value-wise. In terms of national value, a literate populace rates pretty high in everyones mind.

                What Obama needs to get interested in human spaceflight is some clear statement of national value. Not the cold war national value that it had decades ago, or the species protection value that it might have in a few centuries (millenia?), but some contemporary value. Scooping water off the Moon or wrassling asteroids ain’t it.

              • Brett

                I think we need to just straight-up defend the idea that expanding our pool of scientific knowledge in general enriches us culturally and politically, and is worth doing in of itself for the relatively meager amounts of money that NASA gets compared to national defense and social security spending. We accept similar arguments in public funding for the Arts, and for places like museums – people don’t defend museums just in terms of them being potential tourist attractions or things to do on the weekend.

                We should point out having a good space exploration is an extremely visual, recognizable, peaceful sign of national scientific and technological triumph. That’s why developing countries often do at least some space program as soon as they have the capabilities to do so, like with China and India.

              • Hiram

                “I think we need to just straight-up defend the idea that expanding our pool of scientific knowledge in general enriches us culturally and politically …”

                I couldn’t agree more. And that has what to do with human spaceflight? That’s what this was about. Aside from the effect of microgravity on humans, science accomplished by human spaceflight doesn’t come close to what has been accomplished with non-human spaceflight. Not even close. The Luna’s were returning lunar samples with great economy, and everything that Apollo did scientifically could now be done telerobotically. An improved version of HST could have been rebuilt for less than a Shuttle launch. I’d like to believe that human spaceflight could have a principal and enabling role in doing great science, but it just hasn’t demonstrated that yet.

                Your second paragraph is exactly right, though it is hardly exclusive to human space exploration. I notice that you didn’t claim that it was. It takes a big set of blinders to do that exclusion.

                No, human spaceflight ought to be good for many things, but you can’t defend it scientifically. We’ve moved way beyond that.

              • Brett

                I mentioned up-stream that if we could get a few more billion for the robotic missions, I’d be totally fine with cancelling the manned spaceflight program. I’m okay with defending the robotic missions on pure “science is good for us” grounds by themselves.

              • Hiram

                Thanks for the clarification. But we do have to be careful about not implying that “space exploration” equals human spaceflight. That is often done, not even implicitly. I know that you didn’t do that here, but it was in a thread about human spaceflight. The “science is good for us” argument is an excellent one, and that’s the kind of thing the CBO should be aware of.

          • “You keep forgetting that it was Bush/Griffin that gave Musk his biggest boost. With that SpaceX got the Falcon 9 and Dragon – Commercial Crew is just an upgrade of the Dragon.”

            Again, I’m a strong supporter of the Commercial Crew program. But the Commercial Crew program doesn’t mean eliminating our government space program. Bush supported Commercial spaceflight efforts– and the Constellation program.

            Marcel

            • Coastal Ron

              Marcel F. Williams said:

              But the Commercial Crew program doesn’t mean eliminating our government space program.

              Since it is SUPPORTING the current government HSF space program – the ISS at this point – I’m not sure why you are pushing this strawman argument of yours…

      • amightywind

        Obama cancelled Project Constellation after lying about supporting it during the 2008 election.

      • guest

        Obama before taking office said he would terminate Constellation and take the money and give it to education.

        Obama after election terminated Constellation. He attempted to terminate the MPCV/Orion and the Ares boosters. Congress funded both against Obama’s wishes.

        Obama had the option to look into what else to do regarding Shuttle but chose to take no action and hold no review.

        ISS is the next nail in the coffin.

        • Hiram

          “You lied. Congress cancelled it”

          Actually, Obama proposed to Congress that Constellation be cancelled in his FY11 budget. Congress agreed. He had supported it in his FY10 budget. He most certainly didn’t terminate it “after his election”. That FY10 support was before he found out how bolluxed up it was, fiscally. I think the lie (if one wants to undiplomatically call it that) was that Constellation was a fiscally sustainable program on a realistic schedule. In the 2008 election, Obama was willing to believe that sustainability, though he did question the value of it compared to education. I suspect that in his mind, that question hasn’t changed, though political realities have intruded.

          “Obama had the option to look into what else to do regarding Shuttle but chose to take no action and hold no review.”

          I guess he had the option to look into what else to do regarding Shuttle, but Shuttle had the plug pulled on it by Bush2, and assembly lines had been decommissioned. Not clear what choices he could have made. So there wasn’t a lot to look into. Taking no action and holding no review was sensible.

        • Vladislaw

          What part of NON BINDING do you not understand? Do we need to drag out the chalkboard and do flow charts for you so you can FINALLY grasp that the President can not terminate a program just because they do not include funding for it in the NON BINDING budget the Administration hands over to congress?

          The President didn’t want heavy lift, but congress said screw you, we are going to fund the pork rocket to nowhere.

          The President, in order to terminate the program would have to veto the spending bill that was providing the funding.

          Did President Obama veto the NASA spending bill that provided funding for Constellation program?

          No he didn’t veto that bill, why? because .. a BI PARTISAN Congress voted to NOT FUND CONSTELLATION.

    • Brett

      The manned program isn’t going to be canceled as long as it provides jobs and money to key corporations and swing states (AKA Florida). Plus, no President really wants to be the one who “killed NASA” – even Nixon endorsed the Space Shuttle after taking a hatchet to NASA’s budget after 1969. If Congress passed a budget that zeroed out funding for manned spaceflight, no President would sign it unless it was otherwise a dream bill.

  • MrEarl

    Where is Oler? This is right up his alley!

    We’re talking $10 billion a year. A small drop in the bucket of the $900 billion yearly budget deficit.
    $73 billion over 7 years is such a small drop in the bucket of the $17 trillion deficit.
    We could eliminate ALL discretionary,(non-military)spending and still not balance the budget.
    You don’t solve a deficit like this by looking for change under the sofa cushions. You have to go to where the money is, entitlements and defense spending. And once you’ve squeezed them until they can’t be squeezed any more you have to raise taxes. Yes Windy and the teaparty, you can’t pay for a 4 trillion dollar war by cutting taxes. All three things are politically unsavory but the only way to get’er done.

    • common sense

      Wow! Did you change side? ;) Good for you!

    • Robert G. Oler

      I lurk mostly but I do lurk I am pretty busy with three aviation and one aviation/space related task on the Indian sub continent…

      Look the problem is that NASA and the US (just to stay in country) have spent in constant dollars hundreds of billions flying the shuttle, building the space station, and now operating it…and we are 1) no closer to the technologies needed to do serious deep space long term travel, 2) we are no closer to a cost structure that would allow such long term serious deep space long term travle to be affordable…and 3) there is no product or combination of products that have emerged that have value anywhere near the cost of doing them with humans in space…that can sustain the effort.

      We have the space station now 15 years old…consuming in kind of current dollars around 3-4 billion a year and we get what for that 3 to 4 billion?

      Now in the scheme of things thats not a lot of federal dollars…what was spent in Iraq/was/is being spent in Afland, is spent at the DoD for weapons that dont work or are not needed…….but IT IS ALL THE MONEY SPENT ON HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT…so you have to ask how to justify it?

      What is desperately needed is a way to redo the humanspaceflight structure to lower cost, increase user availability and hopefully unleash the power and innovation of free enterprise. That wont happen with 1.5 at best person days of science on a 6 person crew and thousands in support on the ground

      The only good thing about ISS is the commercial programs…

      Greetings from the Indian sub continent…I got to see the Indian Mars launch from the firing room …nice

      Robert G. Oler

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    This strikes me as an attempted “close the Washington Monument” ploy. My fear is that the bluff may be called and it will be the beginning of the end for NASA in the form we now know it. It could easily end up as a tiny less-than-$5B per year operation that just occasionally launches robot probes (when money isn’t being used up for Earth observation) on commercial LVs.

  • James

    Yes, where is RGO! Love to hear his views on this.

    Like I said the other Day, HSF is like a chicken that has it’s head chopped off. It keeps walking around not knowing it will drop dead any minute; The CBO option has started the clock on that minute.

    Having said that, if Congress does pass a bill the zero’s out HSF, it will have done so over the objections of key Florida, Texas, Alabama Congress Critters.

    Since Obama is already on record as saying “Man on Asteroid for HSF”, I can’t see him signing such a bill though…unless he gets something out of it that cements his legacy as the greatest president ever…and I don’t see that happening.

    If the CBO option is enacted, it will be by the next President.

    And once HSF is gone..it won’t be long before Congress comes after Robotic’s and simply shuts down the whole mess. (Thanks JWST!)

    Yes, where is RGO when this blog needs him!

    • Hiram

      “HSF is like a chicken that has it’s head chopped off. It keeps walking around not knowing it will drop dead any minute; The CBO option has started the clock on that minute.”

      That’s a compelling picture, but I’m afraid the CBO option, written by folks who are really not versed in space efforts at all, won’t start anything substantive. It is remarkable, however, that anyone on Capitol Hill even dares to broach such an option. Human spaceflight has been the great untouchable.

      “Since Obama is already on record as saying “Man on Asteroid for HSF”, I can’t see him signing such a bill though…unless he gets something out of it that cements his legacy as the greatest president ever…and I don’t see that happening.”

      I think the days that a President can cement any sort of legacy through human space flight are over and done with. The leadership value of a President for space exploration is a trope that has long expired. In fact, it expired fifty years ago. Those who wish for a President who can lead our charge into the cosmos are simplistic. Partisan politics has gotten bad enough that NO party will let a President in the other party cement a legacy with a large project like this. Especially one that offers no clear value to the American taxpayer. So stop looking for the next JFK. It ain’t gonna happen. I have to assume that until the cooperativeness of our politics improves, our democracy is at a grave disadvantage in accomplishing large inspirational projects like a major human space flight effort. The root problem, you see, isn’t money or technology. It’s politics. Pure and simple. That’s why China is going to beat us. Without consensus and agreement, it would take an authoritarian government to pull something like that off. But we don’t “do” consensus and agreement any more.

  • MW”“SLS derived habitats from the hydrogen fuel tanks…”

    “This is a quaint idea, but never tested in real life. To make a fuel tank useable, you have to make it weaker on takeoff, or do a heck of a lot of refurbishment in space, which we’ve never tried. This won’t work until we have hundreds of people in space, not just six.”

    Actually it was. It was called Skylab.

    And you can check out the SLS derived Skylab 2 concept at:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_II

    http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Griffin_3-27-13/Griffin_3-27-13.pdf

    Marcel

    • Coastal Ron

      Marcel F. Williams said:

      Actually it was. It was called Skylab.

      As everyone knows, Skylab was purpose built and outfitting on the ground – the dry workshop option.

      So what I said continues to be correct – we haven’t proven out the wet workshop concept, and at this time there is no reason for it – the ISS has validated the dry workshop concept.

      No doubt there will come a time where we’ll want larger diameter and longer modules, but that is so far down the road that by the time we get there the commercial launch providers will be able to build and operate those larger launchers. In fact they could do it today, so the government owning and running their own launcher is pretty wasteful.

      • “As everyone knows, Skylab was purpose built and outfitting on the ground – the dry workshop option.

        So what I said continues to be correct – we haven’t proven out the wet workshop concept, and at this time there is no reason for it – the ISS has validated the dry workshop concept.”

        I wasn’t advocating a workshop concept, I was advocating the Skylab II concept that’s why I supplied you with the URLs.

        Marcel

  • “Yet the far more expensive SLS and MPCV programs are not wastes of money, even though they don’t have any funded missions that they support?”

    The ISS/Commercial Crew LEO program cost more than the SLS/MPCV program. The SLS/MPCV development program is only about $3 billion a year.

    The Orion/Ares I was being funded at about $3.4 billion when Obama came into office.

    If anything, the SLS is being underfunded.

    Marcel

    • Coastal Ron

      Marcel F. Williams said:

      If anything, the SLS is being underfunded.

      Three simple questions Marcel:

      1. When do you think Congress will start funding a steady stream of payload missions for the SLS?

      2. How much do you think an SLS-sized payload mission of moderate complexity would cost?

      3. How long do you think it will take to build an SLS-sized payload of moderate complexity?

      • Egad

        > 2. How much do you think an SLS-sized payload mission of moderate complexity would cost?

        Back in 2008 the NRC took a look at science missions that Constellation might enable and came up with > $5e9 per mission for Ares V. I expect that the same would be true for SLS, should missions for it ever be discovered.

        http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12554&page=1

        Launching Science: Science Opportunities Provided by NASA’s Constellation System by Committee on Science Opportunities (Feb 13, 2009)

        Finding: The scientific missions reviewed by the committee as appropriate for launch on an Ares V vehicle fall, with few exceptions, into the “flagship” class of missions. The preliminary cost estimates, based on mission concepts that at this time are not very detailed, indicate that the costs of many of the missions analyzed will be above $5 billion (in current dollars). The Ares V costs are not included in these estimates.

      • “Three simple questions Marcel:

        1. When do you think Congress will start funding a steady stream of payload missions for the SLS?

        2. How much do you think an SLS-sized payload mission of moderate complexity would cost?

        3. How long do you think it will take to build an SLS-sized payload of moderate complexity?”

        *********

        I believe Congress should start funding a manned single stage reusable Extraterrestrial Landing vehicle (ETLV) by 2015. That should probably cost about $1.5 billion a year or less over the course of 7 or 8 years. It should also be easy– and cheap– to derive reusable OTVs (just remove the landing legs and add a simple aerobraker) and orbital fuel depots from the fuel tanks of such a landing vehicle similar to the way the ULA wants to use the vehicles in its ACES program.

        Large SLS launched OTVs, Space depots, and ETLVs should give crews launched to LEO by Commercial Crew vehicles easy access to the surface of the Moon where they can expand their space tourism industry all the way to the lunar surface for the supper wealthy and lunar lotto winners.

        It shouldn’t be difficult to derive microgravity (just as we did with Skylab) and artificial gravity habitats from the SLS hydrogen tank technology. Both types of spacecraft could probably be deployed by the SLS with a single launch– even to the Lagrange points (The SLS with an upper stage should be able to launch at least 30 tonnes of payload to the Earth-Moon Lagrange points). These habitats would still require mass shielding from cosmic radiation and solar events which could probably come from importing regolith from the lunar surface.

        Large ground habitats for the Moon should also be easy to cheaply derive from SLS hydrogen tank technology.

        By the early 2020s, the $3 billion a year ISS program should be over along with the $3 billion a year in SLS/MPCV development cost. Funding for the Commercial Crew program (less than a billion a year) will have also come to an end. So NASA should have at least $7 billion a year to fund its SLS based cis-lunar program by the early 2020s.

        Marcel F. Williams

        • Coastal Ron

          Marcel F. Williams said:

          I believe Congress should start funding a manned single stage reusable Extraterrestrial Landing vehicle (ETLV) by 2015.

          That one program you are advocating for would be $12B just for the vehicle, and would require a budget increase for NASA until 2020 when you think the ISS would end.

          In today’s budget environment, where NASA’s overall budget is decreasing, how realistic is it for you to think that Congress will approve this? Who will propose it and champion it through Congress?

          See, that’s the problem with your math, is that everything you propose requires a budget increase. I know you think that somehow the SLS will fly for free, and that NASA will miraculously be able to do hardware programs for far less than they do now, and they will never go over budget, but how realistic is that?

          When a simple telescope takes $8B and 14 years to get launched, I don’t think any SLS-sized payload can be conceived and flown in less than 10 years. Then if you figure you want to fly at least once a year, that means your budget profile has to grow to about $10B/year to support using the SLS.

          I do this type of budget profiling professionally, so it’s pretty easy for me to see it, and I don’t think you understand the fiscal realities here. That and today’s political gridlock means nothing is likely to happen new with NASA for a while.

          Obama won’t propose this, so what Republican is going to champion this?

          • “When a simple telescope takes $8B and 14 years to get launched, I don’t think any SLS-sized payload can be conceived and flown in less than 10 years.”

            It probably would be a simple and cheaper telescope if it were launched by an SLS vehicle with its huge payload fairing. But, of course, when you try to fund things with minimal annual expenditures cost tend to soar.

            But NASA and its private vendors did manage to put people on the Moon just 11 years after its creation.

            Marcel

          • Hiram

            “When a simple telescope takes $8B and 14 years to get launched …”

            Firstly, JWST is in no way shape or form a “simple telescope”. If a telescope that size were launched in an SLS, it would indeed allow considerable simplification. Marcel is right on that point. Of course, that just moves complexity somewhere else.

            “But NASA and its private vendors did manage to put people on the Moon just 11 years after its creation.”

            And NASA and its private vendors were spending 5% of the entire federal budget to do it. They were wallowing in cash. Now, wallowing in cash doesn’t guarantee performance, but it sure doesn’t hurt.

    • Robert G. Oler

      SLS underfunded LOL SLS in constant dollars is about to cost more then the shuttle system did to get to one orbiter. RGO

      • common sense

        Actually SLS/MPCV are definitely underfunded considering the system used to develop those systems. The point is that it should not be so. There are much cheaper ways to do that. And if Congress is so keen in maintaining jobs they should re-orient NASA towards more useful projects. Unfortunately the people affected do not have the expertise to do something else. Can they be trained might you ask? Of course they can. But the disruption would be somewhat profound to the whole enterprise. And it is probably easier to let it collapse under its own weight as they are currently doing and start anew…

        We’ll see.

      • The SLS is currently being funded at only about $1.5 billion annually. That’s less than half of the cost of the hyper expensive ISS perpetual mission to LEO program.

        The MPCV program is probably an unnecessary component, IMO, since an SLS launched reusable OTV could probably transfer astronauts from LEO to the Lagrange points.

        But the MPCV advocacy by Congress was probably in response to President Obama’s abandonment of the Moon and the complete shutdown of NASA’s manned beyond LEO program plus resentment that the Commercial Crew Program was sort of used as an excuse to do this.

        There was no logical reason for President Obama to make enemies of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress over this issue.

        Marcel

  • I worked in the 1980s as a budget analyst for a municipality. We offered “options” to the City Council all the time, even those we knew would never happen.

    That’s all this is.

  • James

    Does anyone know the mechanism for the CBO to put together options for budget cuts, like this one? Does a committee make a request of the CBO? Does an individual congress critter? Do they do it on their own?

    I wonder because, perhaps there is a strategy here to having this option out in the public domain? e.g. wake up folks to the dysfunction that is NASA HSF? Rally support for more money? Kill SLS/Orion?

    Any thoughts on this ?

    • MECO

      CBO puts together this type of report (options to reduce deficit) periodically, about every couple years. The scope of options covers the entire government, including taxes, mandatory spending, discretionary spending, etc. The options are developed internally in CBO, are not binding in any way, and will probably largely be ignored. Nevertheless, this may be the first time NASA programs have made the list, so it’s not a good omen.

      A quick review of the list to reduce deficit over 2014-2013 timeframe shows a couple of frightening revelations: eliminating HSF reduces the deficit ($73B) which is surprisingly more than
      (1) raising the full retirement age for social security (saves $58B) or
      (2) the total of replacing Joint Strike Fighter ($37B),canceling Army Ground Combat Vehicle ($11B), halting building Ford Class Aircraft Carriers ($10B) and reducing the number of Ballistic Submarines ($11B).

      The biggest “swingers” are changes in taxes and entitlement programs which total in hundreds of billions, but those have been untouchable issues. In lieu of making decisions on priorities and moving forward deliberately, mandatory cuts from sequestration will force an across-the-board drawdown that ensures that everything is done less efficiently.

  • guest

    If nothing else this CBO identified option ought to put NASA on notice that their management of ISS has been lacking. If it were making adequate progress at reasonable cost then I doubt anyone would propose terminating a project that took 30 years and $100 billion to complete.

  • Hiram

    “If it were making adequate progress at reasonable cost then I doubt anyone would propose terminating a project that took 30 years and $100 billion to complete.”

    Ah, so that’s what happened to the Apollo program, which was terminated after taking more than a decade to complete, and expending almost exactly $100B in current-year dollars. They must not have been making “adequate progress”. Who would have known!

  • guest

    Hiram-

    Apollo met is goal, which was only to land men on the moon and return them safely to earth by the end of the decade. Once the goal was met there was considerable debate about whether anything more was required. Some recommended the program be terminated after Apollo 11.

    Fact was the President decided in 1966 that NASA was spending too much money (5% of the budget) and that NASA needed to get it under 1%. Johnson directed that Apollo hardware production be terminated at that point and subsequently Nixon decided 1% of the budget was about right and not to restart any Apollo hardware production. Under Johnson Apollos 21-25 were cut. Under Nixon 18-20 were cut. The program might have ended in 1969. In 1970 after Apollo 13 several of the top NASA managers decided the Apollo system was unsafe and discussion considered terminating the program at that time.

    • Brett

      That was certainly a possibility. I can imagine an alternate situation where we don’t get the space shuttle, and the whole manned program is just wound down after what’s left is used for Skylab. We’d look back on the Apollo Program as a fantastic accomplishment, but just that.

  • James H

    This morning at JSC several of the top Shuttle program managers throughout the development of the program told the story of how NASA was turning away from Apollo because of costs and safety as early as 1966 and decided that they needed to focus on building an earth orbit infrastructure. They had the beginnings of that with Shuttle and station and were intent on developing a heavy lift Shuttle C and an orbital tug. They were amazed that NASA threw Shuttle away in order to turn towards a throw away capsule approach with dreams of lunar or planetary missions that NASA cannot afford. These can be afforded far less today than in the 1960s. They said the problem was compounded by the poor leadership of Constellation in which no requirements could be defined which was required in order to establish the vehicle configurations. Constellation went into a tailspin because of inadequate management. At least some of the managers said they were aghast with the NASA leadership over the last ten years.

    These gentlemen were successful with their projects. They were successful veterans of Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle and Station. Coming from them their words mean a lot and I have to wonder how NASA’s management went downhill so far and so fast.

  • Hiram

    “Apollo met is goal, which was only to land men on the moon and return them safely to earth by the end of the decade.”

    My complaint is that you presume that in order for ISS to be proposed for termination, it must not be making “adequate progress at reasonable cost”. That’s not fair. The question, on the other hand, is whether ISS has met its goal, which the geopolitical leadership sees as forging a working partnership with Russia and greasing the skids for international cooperation in space. It has done that. In spades. In the minds of a lot of other people, ISS was the beginning of our reach into space, and there is alot more we can do with it. Of course, from a geopolitical perspective, the goal of Apollo was landing on the Moon. It did that. In spades. In the minds of a lot of other people, Apollo was the beginning of an ambitious program of humans on the Moon. So there are some strong similarities.

    Another reason that ISS might be proposed for termination is that it’s working great, but we just can’t afford it. That, in a nutshell, is what happened with Apollo.

  • Matt

    A pox on whoever at the CBO put this out there. This is one suggestion that won’t go very far-just like a whole lot of others. Everyone has their own ideas-just look at both the New York Times and Washington Post: every year they have their own “suggestions” for deficit reduction, and hardly any of them get adopted.

  • guest

    Hiram;

    I don’t know that the sole or even the primary goal of ISS was “forging a working partnership with Russia and greasing the skids for international cooperation”.

    The Russian ‘partnership’ was one goal; it was partially met. The relationship has seemed a bit one-sided to me because the US has given away responsibilities for building a lot of the hardware; because most of the crew in orbit is no longer from the US-we usually only get 1 or 2 crew; most are Russian, 1/2 or 2/3 of the other half of the crew, the ‘US side’ are now from ESA, Japan or Canada; and now the US is being charged outrageous amounts for transportation by the Russians; so yes, ISS has helped to develop international working relationships but not all have been positive for the US and the US is being charged outrageously for many of its contributions.

    From an engineering development perspective the US has, in my view, given away far too much responsibility.

    From a scientific experimentation point of view, the US got an unnecessarily very late start in trying to use the facility and even now it is not being used to capacity, and this happened because the right people did not put the appropriate emphasis on utilization.

    You are making it sound as though I am advocating that ISS be terminated. I am not. I think that a lot of its potential has been wasted. I am saying that if ISS is not used to its full potential then there are a lot of people who would say there are more effective ways to make progress.

    You say there is a lot more we can do with it, and you say that while its working great, we just can’t afford it. I agree, there is a lot more we could be doing; why aren’t we? And why is it so expensive? We appear to continue to be spending what we were when Shuttles were flying and when assembly was in progress. Where is all that money going today? More significantly each of those dollars represents people-manpower-why aren’t we working more effectively and efficiently?

    • People act like ending the ISS program would be the end of space stations in orbit when it would probably mean the beginning of a new generation of space stations such as an SLS launched BA-2100 Bigelow space station or an SLS fuel tank derived Skylab II.

      Time for NASA to turn over microgravity experimentation to private industry so that it can focus on the next generation of space habitats– including rotating habitats that produce artificial gravity.

      Marcel

    • Hiram

      “I don’t know that the sole or even the primary goal of ISS was ‘forging a working partnership with Russia and greasing the skids for international cooperation’.”

      I will stand behind that statement. ISS is a geopolitical tool more than it is a space exploration tool. Also, note that international partnerships are well understood at NASA as guarantors of sustainability. So in the interest of doing something (anything!) in human spaceflight that lasts, an international partnership is how you make it happen.

      That the U.S. is being charged outrageous amounts for transportation by the Russians is not their fault. In the best spirit of capitalism, which we’d like to preach to the world through this partnership, Russia is doing exactly the right thing. That we’re seeing these costs is our own mistake. The engineering responsibility that we’ve “given away” is engineering responsibility that we can’t afford. Just that simple.

      Your point that ISS is extraordinarily expensive is certainly true. But the purpose of ISS is more than flying humans in LEO. It’s about developing and validating hardware that can enable greater accomplishments in space. That test-bedding costs money. If it were just about flying people in circles, that would be easier.

      That’s correct about scientific utilization. NASA has this funny attitude that you can’t do science with something until it is COMPLETE. You don’t let experiments into the lab until the pictures are hung on the wall and the floor is waxed. That’s an attitude that is not in the best interest of science, because it denies that the needs of science, once done, might feed back into the evolution of the facility.

  • pathfinder_01

    “People act like ending the ISS program would be the end of space stations in orbit when it would probably mean the beginning of a new generation of space stations such as an SLS launched BA-2100 Bigelow space station or an SLS fuel tank derived Skylab II.”

    If you think this I have got a bridge to sell you cheap. Bigelow stations will need crew and cargo capability which and so commercial crew needs to be up before Bigelow can even try to put up an station and there are probably no savings because you need to equip said station for science and you still have a huge ground force at JSC to run it. SLS station is a desperate make work project for a booster with almost no payloads. Throw away a working space station to be replaced with another one just to give a rocket something to do, ah Congress is looking to cut the budget and adding a payload to SLS will do nothing but increase it(I.e. you need to spend money to develop it).

  • DCSCA

    ‘Among the proposals for cutting spending was the eliminate NASA’s human spaceflight program’

    In other words, tell your kids to become accountants, not astronauts. Inspiring stuff to the green eyeshade crowd. Leave to beancounters to announce their relevence because they can count beans. Eliminating the CBO and all its bureaucracy entails would be a much wiser fiscal move if not inspiring. After all, it doesn’t explore not exploit space, it simply takes it up in buildings and cubicles on Earth.

    • Gregori

      At least accountants do something useful that pays for itself.

    • Hiram

      “Eliminating the CBO and all its bureaucracy entails would be a much wiser fiscal move if not inspiring. After all, it doesn’t explore not exploit space, it simply takes it up in buildings and cubicles on Earth.”

      I think the CBO numbers two hundred or so people. That doesn’t hold a candle to the NASA centers, where a hundred times more civil servants, plus a whole lot of contract staff, are taking up space. Yes, I never thought of it that way, but NASA centers, with their buildings and cubicles are indeed marvelous exercises in space exploitation. As to exploration, it was once explained to me that accountants are those who can really “look under the hood” of a business and understand how it works. It’s been a long time since astronauts did any kind of exploration. Of course, there is no real question in any minds how LEO works.

      We should not begrudge the green eyeshade crowd their inspiration. It’s only fair, considering the astronauts so capably inspire the maximum absorbent garment crowd.

  • Reticuli

    I recommend firing all these goons and their bosses instead. Have they done a report yet on what their own elimination would save?

  • Reticuli

    Exploration and expansion is not a means; it is an end.

  • Edward Jones

    Space flight will NEVER happen as long as conservatives support the multi-trillion-dollar corporate welfare & Wall Street welfare state. Giving the undeserved rich even more money is rightists’ #1 priority. Far above the poor, veterans, human rights, animal rights, ending torture of humans & nonhumans in all parts of the world.

    Rightists hypocritically complain about college students living at home with their parents who protest high tuition. So what? They have the absolute free speech right to say & believe what they want. If they want to believe they have life difficult, it’s none of your business – no matter if you have a fulltime job or a veteran – to stop them.

    As long as conservatives complain about the top 0.01% wealthy’s First World Problem of others criticizing them for being handed billions of dollars in free money by the government, civilization is doomed.

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